Brink Complete Pack

Following up on last month's trailer, here's a look at some pre-alpha multiplayer gameplay from Dirty Bomb. The trailer takes us to a smoldering, half-destroyed version of London, presumably one of the levels of Brink developer Splash Damage's new free-to-play title. We get to see mostly scenes of infantry action, though a few moments of sniping and vehicular combat make it in as well.

Good news! After a period of relative silence following Brink’s splash-that-wasn’t, Splash Damage is back with another game about men shooting other men. However, not-so-good news: iOS, greedy devourer of worlds that it is, swallowed the poor thing whole. And while the Enemy Territory developer also has a free-to-play PC exclusive in the works for later this year, Rad Soldiers – as the iOS-bound strategy is known – looks like asynchronous XCOM wearing TF2′s pants. In other words: delightful. I wants it, precious. I wants it. Fortunately, Splash Damage told us that all hope isn’t lost.

The UK Writers’ Guild Awards took place at the end of 2011 but the American guild like to time their ceremonies a little closer to the Oscars so that they can fall into Awards Season, which isn’t actually a season at all. You may remember that a man named Gillen was nominated for the UK award, along with Ed Stern whose script for Brink received a nod. The winners were the writers of Enslaved though and that doesn’t exist on PC so we neglected to mention its victory. A belated round of applause to Alex Garland and Tameem Antoniades. So, who has received a nomination from the American guild? Read on.

Laurel D. Austin does some great work. Employed for years at Splash Damage, the team behind Brink, she's recently joined Blizzard, where she's working as a concept artist. Living the dream.

In this gallery you will find: some of her amazing work for Brink (say what you will about the game, its art was awesome) as well as World of Warcraft stuff, specifically images for the trading card game based on the blockbuster MMO.

Every year the Writers Guild of America awards a special Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing award to the team responsible for the most memorable interactive entertainment script. Which of these five titles will walk away a winner on February 19?

You know what I love about the Writers Guild of America Video Game Writing Award? It's a chance for games that weren't nominated for any other category to shine. Just look at poor Brink. Not only wasn't it nominated for any other major awards, just about everyone I know forgot it even existed. Now it stands proudly among the likes of Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Uncharted 3, and...Mortal Kombat?

There was writing in Mortal Kombat?

And if your favorite game didn't make the cut, rest easy; to be eligible members of the writing staff must be or have applied to be members of the guild's Videogame Writers Caucus at the time their game was released, and who wants to deal with that hassle, other than the Mortal Kombat guys?

Check out the full list of nominees and appreciate a group of people that doesn't get the recognition they so richly deserve.

The game may've met with a lukewarm reception when it hit last year, but the one thing that Splash Damage's Brink had going for it was an amazing art style. Laurens Corijn, an artist at the British dev studio, brought that look into the real world by modding a standard Nerf Stampede into an amazing replica of the FPS's Gerund assault rifle.

Corijn went really in-depth with this re-creation, cracking the Stampede open and attaching sights to the once-harmless kids' toy. The step-by-step guide's hosted over on the official Splash Damage site. If Brink ever gets a sequel, let's hope something like this is in the collector's edition.

Brink’s forthcoming clans and tournaments update is being celebrated by a free weekend on Steam, says Bethesda blog. The game is going to be free to play all weekend, this weekend. If you play for free this weekend you will also be able to purchase the game permanently for 75% off at any point during the weekend. That weekend apparently runs from “10 AM PST today… through Monday at 10 AM PST.” So that’s what’s happening with Brink this weekend.

The parkour driven multiplayer shooter, Brink will be free to play through Steam this weekend to celebrate the addition of Clan and Tournament support. That'll let you create and keep track of clans on the Brink site. From there you'll be able to challenge other clans and battle for position on the global clan ladder. The clan hub will also let clan members set up tournaments with custom rulesets, and keep track of each battle online.

Brink never quite got off the ground when it launched back in May, though it showed plenty of promise, with characterful avatars, spectacular settings, varied classes and some destructive gadgets. Find out more in our Brink review. It'll go free at 10AM PST, in about an hour, giving everyone the opportunity to find out how Brink plays six months on. If you like it, Brink will be on sale at 75% off for the duration of the free trial.

UPDATE THE SECOND - It seems all this fuss has been over nothing, with Splash Damage's Paul Wedgewood tweeting:

"We're not working with Disney. We're not building a pop culture IP. We're only using BRINK tech for BRINK updates atm."

UPDATE - Both Eurogamer and Kotaku are speculating this could be a Marvel comics game, based on the sentence "a company widely believed to have given up on the console publishing business", which could well be Disney, who own the Marvel brand. The timing also fits with the '50 years' quote, as the Marvel we know first took off in 1961 with the creation of the Fantastic Four.

Could we see an Avengers game based on Brink? Would it resemble the awesome looking cancelled Avengers FPS from THQ (video above)? We can only hope.

Original post follows.

Hiding in the corner of an Industry Gamers article is a hint at Brink developer Splash Damage's next project. Apparently the studio has "at least one unannounced project for a major entertainment brand", which will be based on the Brink engine. Exactly which brand it is is still a secret, but the article claims it is: "One of the biggest American pop culture brands of the last 50 years."

Speculation at the ready people! What could it be? What 50 year old pop culture license could lend itself to Brink's technology?

A major report on British developers from IndustryGamers has thown up a surprising piece of information: that Brink developers Splash Damage are probably working on a new Marvel game.

The report says that the studio is working on an "unannounced project for a major entertainment brand", which is "based on one of the biggest American pop culture brands of the last 50 years".

When it then says this major entertainment brand is "a company widely believed to have given up on the console publishing business", it becomes pretty clear it's talking about Disney, which recently purchased Marvel comics.

The game in question has "online multiplayer technology" and is running on "an even more polished Brink engine".

So, yeah, sounds a lot like Brink with Marvel characters. Maybe for the upcoming Avengers movie.